Wednesday, February 29, 2012

I thought Americans had really gone off the deep end over the election four years ago. Grab your life preservers and nose plugs, folks, because here we go again.

If you thought the rhetoric and ridiculous claims were bad in the last election, you ain't heard nothing yet. Apparently Fox News' Lou Dobbs was ranting earlier this week over the movie "The Lorax". He claims it is an attempt by the Obama administration to push an environmentalist agenda and spread "propaganda" about sharing.

How dare we teach our children to share and care about the earth. The horror of it all.

First of all, I really have to give kudos to Obama for his influence on a book that was written in 1971, approximately 41 years before he took office. Now that's power.

More to the point, have we really become so polarized that we have to make a political statement out of Dr. Suess? Theodor Geisel was certainly an influential writer, but I must of missed the communist propaganda in "Green Eggs and Ham".

I used to read my kids "One Fish, Two Fish. Red Fish, Blue Fish" all the time. Does that make me a socialist for dividing the fish equally or a member of the Nazi party for singling them out by color?

I would hope that people who hear rhetoric this ridiculous would step back and reevaluate why they base their opinions on political pundits instead of taking the time to do some research and come to their own conclusions. I have a feeling I would be disappointed.

I bet if I look hard enough, I can find an "agenda" in many of our children's classics. I dug a few out of the attic just to prove my point.

"Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See" by Eric Carle is clearly about voyeurism. All of those animals spying on each other are obviously teaching children that they could have lucrative careers as Peeping Toms.

"If You Give A Mouse A Cookie" by Laura Numeroff is pure socialism. Look what happens when you give too many handouts. We end up with a society of unappreciative mice demanding more freebies, hogging our remotes and raiding our refrigerators.

The worst has to be "Pat The Bunny" by Dorothy Kunhardt. Imagine a book encouraging children to chase down and manhandle rabbits for all these years. I'm surprised PETA isn't burning copies and holding boycotts outside of Barnes and Noble.

I'm not sure if I should be more worried about a world that would use a children's movie to promote a political agenda, or the fact that I read my children all of those disturbing books when they were small.

Let's hope Lou Dobbs doesn't get wind of these controversial works of literature. After all, with gas prices approaching $4 a gallon and unemployment still in the double digits, discussing the radical views of children's books and movies such as "The Lorax" sure seems relevant.